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The Pianist

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and winner of 3, The Pianist stars Oscar winner Adrien Brody in the true-life story of brilliant pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman, the most acclaimed young musician of his time until his promising career was interrupted by the onset of World War II. This powerful, ultimately triumphant film follows Szpilman's heroic and inspirational journey of survival with the unlikely help from a sympathetic German officer. A truly unforgettable epic, testifying to both the power of hope and the resiliency of the human spirit, The Pianist is a miraculous tale of survival masterfully brought to life by visionary filmmaker Roman Polanski in his most personal movie ever.

Over the years there have been countless movies telling various tales of World War Two. From the blood and guts wave-the-flag films such as Saving Private Ryan, to the gripping story of Schindler's List, every conceivable angle to do with the war has been covered.

Some of the best WW2 movies depict true stories. This is the case with The Pianist, the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, an accomplished concert pianist who, as a Jew, became caught up in the Nazi occupation of Poland. Starring Adrien Brody in the lead role, The Pianist offers a gripping, if perhaps sometime slow moving account of Szpilman's efforts to survive the holocaust. Szpilman is forced to abandon his family who are send to an extermination camp, and instead work in a labour camp.

Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for his role, and famous Director Roman Polanski also won for Best Director.

While the movie follows the true story of Szpilman and his experience as a Jew in wartime Poland, the movie uses this story to highlight the plight of all Jews in Poland and particularly Warsaw during that time. This is not a movie to watch if you're looking for some light entertainment on a Saturday night. It's long (two and a half hours) and often slow moving. Add to this some fairly graphic illustrations of Nazi persecution of the Jewish citizens of Warsaw, and you have a movie that is fairly intense to say the least.

Movies such as The Pianist make us remember what World War Two was all about. Saving Private Ryan and its ilk give one perspective on the war, but it is movies like The Pianist that depict the true human suffering of war so very well.